The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [184]
The memo also tries to boost the importance of Gun Gun and the al-Ghuraba cell, stating: “Hambali admitted that some members of the [Pakistani] cell were eventually to be groomed for U.S. operations—at the behest of KSM—possibly as part of KSM’s plot to fly hijacked planes into the tallest building on the U.S. west coast.” This “eventually” and “possibly” was the best that analysts could conclude, despite 183 sessions of waterboarding, the coercive interrogation technique that simulates drowning. The reality is that the al-Ghuraba cell wasn’t involved, which is why the United States didn’t request the arrest of its members and they were sent to their home countries.
And while KSM was “confessing” to plots already thwarted, and those running the EIT program thought that this was important news, he didn’t tell them about plots that hadn’t yet happened but which he definitely knew about because of his position as al-Qaeda’s military commander, such as the cells working in Madrid, London, and Jakarta. Pleased with the success of the first Bali attack, in October 2002, KSM gave Hambali $100,000 as “a sign of congratulations” and another $30,000 for further operations. Hambali gave the money to Noordin Top and the bomb maker Azahari Husin to fund the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta on August 5, 2003, approximately five months after KSM was arrested.
While Hambali’s capture cut off the remnants of the JI network from al-Qaeda central, operatives like Noordin Top now had acquired a taste for violence. With Azahari, Top went on to carry out three more terrorist attacks in Indonesia, including a second attack in Bali. Azahari was killed when Indonesian police raided his hideout in East Java in November 2005, and Noordin Top was tracked down to a safe house near the Indonesian royal city of Solo in Central Java, where he died in a hail of bullets on September 17, 2009. After that, the Indonesian police discovered a terrorist training camp in Aceh and rounded up several dozen more JI operatives and their new recruits.
PART 6
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THE FIRST HIGH-VALUE DETAINEE
20
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Abu Zubaydah
March 29, 2002. [1 word redacted] was in the middle of packing [1 word redacted] suitcase in [1 word redacted] New York City apartment, preparing to take a long-awaited vacation and spend Easter with family in Pennsylvania, when [1 word redacted] cell phone, house phone, and pager all rang consecutively. It was [1 word redacted] assistant special agent in charge, Kenny Maxwell, calling from the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, ordering [1 word redacted] to travel to a private airstrip at Dulles Airport, outside Washington, DC, for a special mission. Abu Zubaydah, America’s first high-value detainee since 9/11, had been captured the night before. [1 word redacted] was to help interrogate him.
The FBI had been looking for Abu Zubaydah for a while. He was originally wanted for his connection both to Ahmed Ressam’s attempt to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999 and to the millennium plot in Jordan. Abu Zubaydah’s name had come up with increasing frequency in intelligence reports after the millennium plot. While he was not a member of al-Qaeda, his role as external emir of Khaldan was of considerable importance. Senior al-Qaeda members, such as Khallad, regularly turned to Abu Zubaydah for help with passports and travel. In turn, al-Qaeda guaranteed Abu Zubaydah’s protection elsewhere in Afghanistan, and he often stayed in their guesthouses. He was one of the most important cogs in the shadowy network that we were struggling to disrupt.
[1 word redacted] emptied [1 word redacted] suitcase and packed a duffel bag. Ten minutes later [1 word redacted] was in a cab heading to LaGuardia Airport. In Washington, acting FBI deputy assistant director Charles Frahm met [1 word redacted] to drive